Maui Choral Arts Association presents ‘I Dream A World’ spring concert on April 21

A spring concert led by Maui Choral Arts Artistic Director & Conductor John Rowehl, pianist Lotus Dancer and a 60-voice chorus, will combine two 30-minute choral movements on Sunday, April 21.

The compositions, “Carol Barnett’s The World Beloved: A Bluegrass Mass” and “Kyle Pederson’s A Vision Unfolding,” are both Maui premiers and feature unique cross-cultural collaborations with spoken word-poetry and hula to interpret these choir movements.

The concert kicks off on Sunday, April 21, at 2 p.m. in the sanctuary at St. Anthony Catholic Church, located at 1618 Lower Main St., in Wailuku.

Tickets are $35 ($20 for students) — all general admission, open seating — and may be purchased online at mauichoralarts.org or at the door. The box office will open at 1:15 p.m. and the doors at 1:30 p.m. The venue is ADA accessible.

The concert will run about 100 minutes, including an intermission.

Commissioned in 2006, “The World Beloved: A Bluegrass Mass” sought to bring classical-based Mass together with the down-home sparkle of bluegrass. The composition by Carol Barnett had its Carnegie Hall debut in February 2013 and has become popular across the country.

“My highest hope is that listeners coming from one tradition — classical or bluegrass — and perhaps dubious about the other, might discover something new and wonderful in the combination, as I have,” said Barnett about her piece. “Composing the music has given me the chance to write cheery sacred music — all too rare in a medium rife with staid and even lugubrious settings.”

Maui Choral Arts will be joined in this work by a home-grown pick-up bluegrass band: Teresa Skinner (violin), Aaron Huisenfeldt (mandolin), Ely Spivack (banjo), Jeremy Savo (guitar), and Patty Pearce (bass).

Kyle Pederson’s “A Vision Unfolding” is a newer work, published just last year. In 2021, Pederson was commissioned by seven choirs to write an extended work, centered broadly around themes of social justice.

“We determined that, at the core, we hoped to re-articulate and explore what our country has stood for in its best moments,” said Pederson about the composition. “In our foundational texts and speeches, we find powerful declarations of a nation rooted in equality, freedom, justice, and inclusion.”

Choral movements are interwoven with spoken word poetry, delivered in this performance by Elizabeth Fellows, Scott McLelland, Ricky Jones, Hoku Pavao Jones, Lenita Witherspoon, and Francis Tauʻa.

In the spirit of cross-cultural collaboration, Conductor John Rowehl invited Kumu Hula, Sissy Lake-Farm, to create hula to interpret three of the work’s five movements. She will be joined by her Hālau Makana Aloha O Ka Lauaʻe, and she in turn invited Aunty Iola Balubar and the St. Anthony’s Church Ladies of Hui O Lama Kukui to offer sacred gesture in the final choral movement, a setting of the famous Langston Hughes poem (and the inspiration for the concert’s title), “I Dream a World.”

Cody Sarmiento (trumpet) and Peter Della Croce (percussion) join Lotus Dancer (piano) and Teresa Skinner (violin) in creating the instrumental accompaniment to the work.